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SECOND LIFE: the GAME of VIRTUAL LIFE Alison Mcmahan I THEGAMEOFVIRTUALLIFEdr3alison 6/14/16, 7:24 AM SECOND LIFE: THE GAME OF VIRTUAL LIFE Alison McMahan I don’t want the public to see the world they live in while they’re in the park. I want them to feel they’re in another world. – Walt Disney (Imagineers, 90) Virtual Reality is basically nothing new. We have been creating Virtual Reality around here for more than forty years. – John Hench, Senior Vice President, WED Enterprises (Imagineers, 91) Walt Disney’s theme parks contain two key elements of virtual reality: high levels of engagement and of immersion. Physically, the “guests” are almost fully immersed, as they are completely removed from their real world while in the park. Psychologically, they are immersed by story: each themed area is built on a myth (the myth of the American Frontier for Adventureland, or the utopian concept of technological progress for Tomorrowland, for example) and each ride is based on a story that might be familiar from storybooks or films (for example, the Indiana Jones Ride, based on Steven Spielberg’s 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark) or similar enough to a familiar story that we can quickly grasp the story from the ride itself (the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride, based loosely on novels like Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island, and later the inspiration for a Hollywood film). To a certain extent, Disney’s theme parks are also interactive. As guests stand in line to a ride they are often addressed by characters (enacted by humans, whether live or pre-recorded, or by Audio-Animatronic automatons) from the story-world of the ride as if the guests were characters in the story. Most of the rides are voyeuristic (traveling through the Haunted Mansion) but some attractions involve more direct participation (exploring Adventure Isle). Furthermore, games and events or Page 1 of 23 THEGAMEOFVIRTUALLIFEdr3alison 6/14/16, 7:24 AM performances within the world, like the shooting gallery or a sing-along in the Golden Horseshoe saloon in Frontierland, go further in strategically engaging the guests in the world of the park. The quote by John Hench invites us to compare Disneyland to virtual worlds in cyberspace. Persistent Worlds (PSWs) like Second Life could be described as 3-D virtual theme parks. In Second Life there is no one story or myth set, as there are in graphic medieval fantasy worlds such as Ultima Online or in text-based MUDs such as Genesis or Angalon, all of which owe a considerable debt of inspiration to Tthe Lord of the Rings (1954-55) trilogy of novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. Instead, there are a number of areas with different themes, such as the area set in the world of Ridley Scott’s film (and Philip K. Dick’s original novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968)), Blade Rrunner (1982) or an area based on the various worlds contained in J. M. Barrie’s novel Peter Pan (1911), as well as various areas based on real life clubs, amusement parks, museums, art galleries, bars and restaurants, to name just a few. Second Life might not provide the same sensation one can get from a roller-coaster at Disneyland, and a 3-D world accessed via a desk- or laptop computer is certainly not as physically immersive as a theme park, but the level of interactivity is much higher: visitors are not just “guests”, they are “residents.” Residents automatically become members of a virtual familial group (when they choose their name), and their first task it to design their own appearance in the world, an appearance they can alter at will, including their gender. In other words, the difference between Disneyland and Second Life is the difference between meatspace (that is, the physical world where the player’s flesh and bone body resides) and cyberspace (the virtual reality space where the player’s avatar, or digital, manipulable alter-ego resides). Page 2 of 23 THEGAMEOFVIRTUALLIFEdr3alison 6/14/16, 7:24 AM Persistent worlds represent a different kind of digital play from the better known first-person shooter games, adventure games, or even massive multiplayer online games (MMOG). They offer interesting opportunities to test out various theories about interactive narration and gaming and what creates a strong sense of presence (the feeling of really “being there”) in the user. Finally, they can serve as an excellent and affordable teaching tool for teachers working with students from various backgrounds in issues involving non-linear narrative, gaming, and virtual reality. This paper describes a second year undergraduate course I taught at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, in the fall of 2003 (course “syllabi” at www.alisonmcmahan.com). The course challenged students to develop and confront their assumptions about virtual reality and to understand what constituted authentic virtual reality experiences of different types. They were asked to think about VR in both theoretical and practical terms, and then apply and test their new knowledge in their midterm and final projects. For these they created a virtual reality environment for their peers to enjoy, using one of several technologies: a MUD or MOO, QuickTime VR, a gaming engine such as the Unreal engine, a mini-CAVE (computer automated virtual environment) system or in Second Life. In the process, we learned a great deal about how immersion and engagement are achieved in virtual environments, and what factors affect them. Some of the conclusions we reached were surprising. VIRTUAL WORLDS AND MOVIES Until this time, Walt [Disney] knew little of the three- Page 3 of 23 THEGAMEOFVIRTUALLIFEdr3alison 6/14/16, 7:24 AM dimensional side of the entertainment fence, where fairs, amusement parks and the like could be found. But he did know movies and television. Driven by the desire to take his passion for storytelling far beyond the confines of two-dimensions, he landed on the idea that visitors who stepped in to this new park should feel as though they stepped into a movie. Every inch of the place should be part of a story, as in a movie or television show. (Imagineering, 11) On the first day of class I asked my students to tell me how they understood and defined virtual reality. As they gave their answers I made a list on the board. Most of their assumptions were wildly inaccurate (except for one or two who had some computer programming experience), reflecting what they had seen in the movies. The final list was wide ranging, but it boiled down to a few widely accepted myths about VR: that the technology for a holodeck-type VR (as depicted in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) television series) already exists, but is used, mostly secretly and for nefarious purposes, by powerful institutions such as the military; that these purposes include brainwashing and possibly torture; that the same technology could be used for intensely hedonistic purposes such as “safe” drug trips and intense but remote sex; that extensive VR use for work or play could lead to brain damage; that one could lose one’s soul to the VR machine or become a “ghost in the machine”, that is, that their personalities or souls would get trapped in the computer generating the virtual reality environment and never be able to escape. Clearly, this reflected a misunderstanding of how artificial intelligence works as well as how virtual reality works. As part of the course I encouraged the students to distinguish between the two as well as to understand each one better. There was little understanding, except amongst Page 4 of 23 THEGAMEOFVIRTUALLIFEdr3alison 6/14/16, 7:24 AM some of the computer programmers, of the different types of VR that were possible. For example, most of the students did not see hypertext, text-based adventure games or even 3D computer games as forms of VR; in their minds VR had to include stereographic projection. And almost no one thought of the VR tools used for telepresence, such as the tools used to control the Mars Rover or for microscopic surgery, as forms of VR. To encourage students to get to know and to collaborate with each other, as well as enabling them to understand how the myths and urban legends around VR had come into being, they were asked to do the following assignment. In groups of two, they were to watch a fiction film that featured extensive VR sequences, discuss how that film represented VR, then write a 500 word paper summarizing their findings which they also presented in the class. A selection of films had been put on reserve for them, but they were free to choose a different film if they wished. It was easy to see, in the ensuing discussion, how most of the urban legends around VR were an outgrowth of a general set of political and cultural anxieties. The political anxieties were focused around the militarization of American culture, polarization within the group on the value of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the global social aftermaths of 9/11, an event that was very present in the student’s’ minds since Vassar is only forty miles from Ground Zero. The cultural anxieties focused on the predominance of machines in our lives, our inability to understand them, and our fear that many of these machines could be used against us. Conceptual and practical mastery of the technology was presented as the solution for such anxieties, starting with an exploration of an easily accessible type of VR world: text- based multi-user domains. Page 5 of 23 THEGAMEOFVIRTUALLIFEdr3alison 6/14/16, 7:24 AM MUDS For their next assignment, students were asked to work in groups of three or four.
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